


Defragmented

by Polyphony



Series: Walled Garden [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Character Death, Drugs, F/M, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-10-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:39:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyphony/pseuds/Polyphony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fallout from an ill-considered student liasion threatens the foundations of the careful balance shared at 221B. A blast from Sherlock's past, a dynastically-minded elder brother, and the emergence of a powerful future ally - or enemy - combine with the usual murder and mayhem, not to mention John's strenuous efforts to keep them financially afloat. Set sometime before Reichenbach in Season Two. Sequel to Deleted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The raw edge of the front door barked my shins, caught in the estate crosswinds, always bitter on the balconies. The sudden silence was deafening; I watched my breath condense into a white mist in the frigid atmosphere. The two bulging carrier bags were awkward to manoeuvre and I took a careful step over the mat, trying not to slip on the morning post. I dumped one of the bags and scooped up the letters, taking them together with the other bag into the kitchen. There were several brown envelopes with windows in them, three sporting red script. Wincing, I parked the shopping where I stood and separated the mail into two piles. I put the smaller one into my pocket and hastily stuffed the larger behind the fridge where it dislodged a further stack of very similar correspondence. I pushed both heaps together into a haphazard mash and thrust them back from whence they had come. Out of sight out of mind; I shivered in the deathly cold.

Ten minutes later found me throwing packets of pasta and tins of tomatoes into the cupboards, kettle rumbling in the background. Shopping away, I sat at the kitchen table, breathed in the steam from my tea and spread the letters I had retained out on the scratched Formica. There were three. The first, from my mother, I tucked back into my pocket to read later at my leisure. The second was junk mail disguised as bank correspondence; I breathed a sigh of relief and binned it. The third I turned over and over in my hands, feeling a stone sink into my stomach at the slimness of its contents. At once, I ripped away the top of the envelope and fumbled out the single sheet, biting my knuckle as I read:

“… for your submission but regret to inform you that we will not be publishing your manuscript as it does not meet our needs at the present time...”

I crumpled the letter cursing under my breath. That was the fifth this week, and these cheapskates hadn’t even bothered to send back the hard copy. I stirred my tea gloomily; I was so broke that replacing the printer ink was becoming an issue.

The rattle of a key in the front door drew me out of my pointless navel-gazing. Feet padded down the hallway and a blond head poked in through the door followed by the rest of Emma, my flatmate’s twelve year old daughter. I smiled affectionately and gestured to the teapot.

“Drink?” I asked. The young girl shook her head and sat down wearily at the table. I looked at her; her eyes were black-rimmed and her shoulders drooped.

“Bad day?” I asked. She nodded without speaking and shrugged her backpack onto the floor. She paused a moment then bent her head to root around in her bag, coming up with a creased exercise book which she tried ineffectually to flatten. She opened the book, rummaged for a pencil and began to read, her brow furrowed in concentration. I looked out into the empty hall and felt my face stiffen.

“Didn’t James come home with you?” I asked casually, collecting the washing up and taking it over to the sink. Emma shook her head, sucking the end of her pencil. I ran the hot water into the bowl. “Do you know where he went?” Another shake; I felt the faint stirrings of a headache.

“He’s with Shark,” Emma said suddenly. She looked up from her work; I narrowed my eyes.

“Do you mean Toby Greaves?” I asked. 

She nodded. “Yeah,” she replied, “He’s horrible.” I agreed with her wholeheartedly; the Greaves clan were well-known in the area. Theft, muggings, burglary – you name it, they were into it. Toby Greaves, known affectionately as Shark, had come to the notice of Social Services and the local police when he was a mere child of five and had not looked back since. It was a few moments before I realised that Emma had stopped writing and there were tears leaking down her cheeks.

“Sweetie,” I said aghast. I knelt at her side. “What happened? Tell me, please.”

Emma kept shaking her head, crying quietly until finally she rubbed the tears away, swallowed and looked back up at me.

“They called me thick,” she told me in a small voice, “They said only stupid people have to have lessons in the lunch hour. They said idiots like me who can’t keep up and have to have extra teachers come in just for them are a waste of air.”

“They called you an idiot?” I repeated, horrified, “James said that?”

Emma shook her head vehemently. “No!” she protested. “It was Shark and that other boy, Seb Johnson. James was just – with them.”

“But he didn’t try to help you?” I replied, “He didn’t stop them bullying you? He let them carry on without objecting?”

“They weren’t bullying me,” Emma mumbled. She picked up her pencil. “They only knew about my extra lesson because I had to have it in the school hall today. Someone was in the sick room – they were throwing up; it was gross,” she said disgustedly. She looked up at me with a sigh.

“I’m never going to get better, am I? I’m always going to be thick,” she said with such an air of hopelessness that I had to swallow before attempting to frame an appropriate answer. As I did so, I heard the front door bang again and the whirlwind that is Jill Waring swept into the kitchen, stowing a pint of milk in the fridge and returning her house keys to her handbag, already talking nineteen to the dozen.

“And I told them I’d think about it,” she said, clearly continuing a conversation most of which I had not been witness to, “but although we could really do with the money, I don’t fancy the late hours in winter time when it gets dark.”

She ducked into the hall to hang her coat on the peg, bestowed an absent-minded kiss and an affectionate ruffle to her daughter’s hair and went over to test the teapot. Clearly deciding its contents were still warm enough, she poured herself a cup.

“Trouble is,” she told me over the steaming liquid, “Chapman thinks we’ve all got cars or buses that go right past our front doors. He forgets that I’ve got a quarter-mile walk through Meadowbrook to get here. It’s that or a mile round trip to avoid it, there’s no other way – I told him so, but he still keeps on at me.”

“Jill,” I began firmly, finally catching on, “is your boss still trying to make you work longer hours? Even after the mugging? Has he no heart?”

“It’s made of stone,” Jill responded, opening the fridge to peer at the contents, “and he thinks that once the physical wounds heal, it’s all in the past.” She sniffed suspiciously and closed the door. 

“Clearly he’s never had first-hand experience,” I replied darkly, thinking of the hospital treatment for the cuts and bruises to her face, the shock and lasting trauma. The fallout on the estate had also been, shall we say, considerable.

Jill gave a weary smile. “He’s just trying to make a living, Lesley,” she replied, “and if I had people queuing up to take this job – people who’d put in all the hours he wanted at the times he wanted – I think I’d be aiming to replace me too. Women with children are always a bad risk in any kind of business, you know that.”  


Indeed I did. I got to my feet briskly.

“Right,” I said, “burgers, chips and beans for dinner tonight, so we’d better get on with it. I think Emma could do with a bit of help on the homework front, Jill; I’ll take care of the food.” 

Jill made a wry face at the mention of burgers (for the second time that week) but she knew only too well the state of our finances. She plodded painfully through Emma’s English corrections with her while I assembled the supper and slid a fourth portion onto a covered plate to await James’ appearance, whenever that might be. We ate our food at the kitchen table, intermittently talking over the remainder of Emma’s homework until she retired to the room she shared with Jill to finish it and, no doubt, to boot up Jill’s laptop in order to Skype her friends.

Jill and I lingered over our chips more for the conversation than out of any real enthusiasm for the food. I made some instant coffee and reluctantly related the substance of Emma’s confession. Jill leaned her head in her hands.

“I can’t really blame them,” she admitted. “I’m angry – of course I am, but I’m not exactly surprised.”

She reached out to close the kitchen door for the flimsy sound proofing it provided and lowered her voice.

“The special needs provision at that school just gets worse and worse,” she said, “and Emma needs so much more if she’s going to get anything in the way of GCSEs or, God help us, A levels.”

“She’s bright, Jill,” I protested. 

Jill sighed. “I know it, you know it,” she replied, “but if she doesn’t know her alphabet, no one else is going to care.” Her face crumpled around the edges in a way I hadn’t seen for a long time. 

I frowned. “Jill?” I queried. 

She flapped her hands a bit and tried to smile. “It’s okay,” she said, “I’m just a bit weepy today.” 

I looked steadily at her, eyebrows raised and eyes widened in encouragement. She looked down at the floor and rubbed her hands over her knees.  


“It’s Dave’s birthday: he would have been thirty-five,” she said finally.

“Oh, Jill,” I said. I reached out a hand and laid it on her arm. 

She shook her head, keeping her eyes hidden. “It’s alright,” she said, “I just started remembering his last birthday – he was in Afghanistan and he managed to call Emma before she went to school. She was thrilled; talked about nothing else all day apparently.”

Jill looked up at me, her eyes misty. “He’d have liked to go out in a blaze of glory,” she said wistfully, “You know – saving a village from a bomb or some children from a landmine; he was like that. Instead, he gets a stupid drunk driver.”

“And you and Emma get a crap deal and end up sharing a dive with James and me on the most notorious housing estate in the East End,” I added. Jill smiled wearily.

“There are worse places,” she protested weakly.

“Oh, yeah?” I replied, “Okay, name one!”

Jill just sighed and got up to clear the dishes. “Don’t worry about me,” she said, still not looking up as she scraped the leavings into the compost caddy, “It’s been two years and I’m just feeling a bit sensitive today. I’ll be alright in a minute.”

Translation: nothing’s ever going to be right again. 

The front door sounded again and both our heads jerked towards it. 

“James!” I called immediately. His footsteps turned into his bedroom and I heard the door close decisively. I got up from the table.

 _“James!”_ I repeated more firmly, deepening the shriek lines on my face. I strode down the hallway and opened his bedroom door.

“Go away,” he told me, planting a foot in front of it, preventing me from entering. “I don’t want you in here.”

“Well, you’re just going to have to put up with it, aren’t you?” I told him, forcing the door open. He gave way reluctantly and I crossed the threshold.

James was tall for a thirteen year old, thin and lanky with long limbs and huge dark eyes. Puberty hit him early at nine and his voice had settled into a husky baritone by the time he changed schools. Although they were in the same academic year, he towered over dainty, petite Emma, looming like some giant praying mantis over a tiny lacewing. His long legs ensured that his centre of gravity was high and together with his frankly enormous feet, he looked and moved like the harvest spiders I remembered from my childhood, covering the barns and outhouses with their silk nets in early autumn, creeping into the larder and the utility room until mum put them out.

“What do you want?” 

His overlong hair made him look like a dandelion, sticking out every which way and obscuring his eyes with messy curls despite my continuous attempts to make him cut it. His school, of course, had more pressing issues like arson and drug peddling in the playground to bother with minor infractions against the uniform code. 

“Your dinner is in the oven,” I began. He shook his head.

“Not hungry,” he told me, turning away to boot up his desktop.

“James, I haven’t finished,” I told him. I put a hand on his arm; he wrenched free and backed off with a look of such ferocity that I shrank back instinctively.

“James?” I said uncertainly. He clenched his fists and the light died in his eyes.

“Sorry,” he muttered, “Look, mum; I need to do some homework, alright?”

I felt my head jerk upright. “Since when have you ever brought work home?” I demanded. 

He shrugged. “Since Mr Morrison gave me a Saturday detention,” he replied. 

I stared. “What for?” I asked. 

He shrugged again. “Being me, I suppose.” James looked up and I was once again struck by his eyes; they reminded me partly of my own in the mirror of a morning and partly of… I shivered.

“Mum, please let’s not go through this again,” James told me with a weariness far too adult for his young years. “They don’t understand – they think I can’t do the work. They think I’m like Emma, they don’t realise how bored I am.”

He stared at me. “I don’t think you realise how bored I am either,” he said resentfully.

“James,” I began, but he cut in.

“They’re just so slow,” he complained.

I frowned, not understanding. “Your friends are slow?” I asked. 

James gave me a poisonous look. “The teachers,” he replied. “Oh, they’re not stupid like Emma is…”

“James!” I was appalled.

“Well, she is,” he insisted mutinously. “I’m fed up with having to babysit her. The other kids laugh at me – it’s embarrassing.”

“They also bully her,” I replied with some heat, “and that’s just plain wrong.”

“And I’m supposed to protect her, is that it?” he replied angrily. “Mum, you don’t understand how things work at that school. If I try to intervene, I’ll get beaten up. At least this way all that happens is a bit of name-calling.”

“That’s how it starts, yes,” I replied worriedly, “James, who are these boys?” 

He set his mouth in a thin line and shook his head.

“You know I’ll just ask Emma, don’t you?” I told him. 

He gave me a flat look. “Ask away,” he said, “at least it won’t have come from me.”

“How will they know?” I asked in a gentler tone. A flash of real fear glimmered in his dark eyes, gone almost before I could see it.

“Don’t,” he said simply. I sighed.

“James, it’s not just you,” I told him. “Emma’s really upset tonight. She knows she’s below par academically – her dyslexia means that reading, writing in complete sentences and grammar are all very difficult…”

“Spare me the spiel, I’ve heard it all before,” James interrupted.

“Don’t speak to me like that!” I shot back, worry and anxiety making my tone sharp. 

James turned away. “If you don’t mind, Mum,” he said, “I’ve got some kindergarten maths and a pedestrian project on the development of industry in the German Ruhr to complete before the end of the day if I want to escape yet another pointless detention.”

I sighed inaudibly. “Don’t let your dinner get all dried up,” I said in a subdued tone. “Is the desktop booting up now?”

James snorted derisively. “Of course it’s booting,” he said loftily, “I made a workaround, but how long it’ll hold up is another question entirely.”

“I wish we could afford you a new one,” I said wistfully.

“I could use your laptop?” he suggested.

“Don’t you dare!” I shot back before catching the faint glint of triumph in his eyes. 

I sighed again. “Just – leave my computer out of it, won’t you?” I told him. “The last thing I want is to lose several years’ work because you decide to reformat the hard drive. It matters, James, even if no one wants to publish me.”

James turned and laid an awkward hand on my shoulder. “Something’ll turn up, mum,” he said quietly, “It always does in the end.”

“Where _did_ you get your streak of optimism from?” I sighed, “Not from me, that’s for sure."

“I must have got it from my father then,” he replied. I stared at the back of his head as he brought up Word and Excel simultaneously. He turned round at my silence.

“Well, it stands to reason,” he said defensively, his blue eyes wide and guileless.

“James,” I began through gritted teeth, “you know the score, I’ve told you…”

He was nodding vigorously. “Yes, I know,” he said, “ships in the night, and all that.” God, but he sounded at least a jaded thirty when he said that. 

He looked at me. “Don’t you think it might be time to look him up again?” he asked.


	2. Chapter 2

The weight in his words rested on the edges of my mind for several days afterwards. James was not a frivolous boy even with language; for an adolescent, particularly as troubled a one as he, every syllable was unusually deliberate and accounted for. He had not mentioned his father since his eighth birthday, five years ago. Why now?

My belief in that elusive character Coincidence underwent a further erosion the following evening when a highly-polished, black limo purred to a walking pace beside me as I walked to the local newsagents for some milk. The one-way glass in the passenger window retracted smoothly; a miracle of modern engineering. I felt for my keys and tightened my fingers around the small can in my pocket.

“Piss off!” I muttered out of the corner of my mouth. “I’m not on the game.”

The rear and front passenger doors opened in a smooth unison. “I did not for one moment assume that you were,” said a suave, cultured voice from the back of the vehicle. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large man in expensive tailoring emerge from the front seat. I waited no longer.

“Perverts!” I screamed, “it’s people like you get this neighbourhood a bad name!” 

I pressed down hard on my rape alarm key fob and heard it break into a reassuringly ear-splitting din. The heavy in the bespoke suit instinctively clapped his hands over his ears. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, I sprayed him in the face with my mace can then swivelled to deliver a long burst of the same into the rear of the vehicle. Anguished cries greeted my actions; I smiled grimly. Quickly detaching my key fob, I tossed it onto the back seat for good measure then legged it through the steps and walkways that were the only route to the block of flats I called home.

I collapsed against the inside of my front door. Never had I been more grateful for the unspoken conspiracy to turn a blind eye to anything untoward on Ashchurch Estate. I made myself a shaky cup of instant and crouched on the floor against a barely warm radiator to drink it. 

My phone sang its text alert. I pulled it from my pocket and frowned at the message:

 

⌂Unknown

That was very unwise.

MH

 

I felt myself grow cold despite the beads of sweat drying on my forehead. MH – MH? Who the blazes was poking their nose into my life now? The phone sang again.

 

⌂Unknown

I mean you no harm.

MH

 

I snorted despite myself and went to pocket my phone when it chimed a third time.

 

⌂Unknown

In approximately 2½ minutes, your doorbell will ring.  
The man you will see will be wearing a chauffeur’s  
uniform and have very inflamed eyes. I advise  
you most strongly to accompany him, particularly as  
due to a rogue electrical fault, none of the security  
cameras on Ashchurch or the surrounding streets  
appear to be working at present.

MH

 

I scarcely had time to panic before the shrill sound of the doorbell shook me out of my paralysis. I swallowed on a dry throat, stood up shakily and went to my destiny.

 

Over the next three weeks or so, there were several almost identical summonses and these events ushered in one of the strangest periods of my life. Although I could never become exactly accustomed to them, the increased familiarity helped me to conquer the impulse to use anti-mugging devices, for some of the time at least; Mycroft Holmes was a persistent man and clearly took his familial duties very seriously.

“How can you afford the time to do this?” I asked him the fourth time I had been expertly kidnapped. I found myself having tea at Fortnum’s which would have been quite enjoyable if I had been wearing anything other than my oldest and baggiest jersey over a pair of paint-stained jeans. When it came to maintaining the upper hand, even the smallest advantage was to be ruthlessly exploited if your name was Mycroft Holmes.

Physically, he was a colourless little man, impeccably tailored and clearly demanding equal standards of dress from his subordinates. He never raised his voice above an urbane mezzo-piano in my hearing but his entourage anticipated his every need, working like oiled clockwork only without the noise. I recognised him from James’ junior school playground, of course, and once I realised his significance, a number of small things seemed to slot into place.

Mycroft Holmes sipped his pallid lemon tea from its bone china cup and rested it back in its saucer with a faint tinkle. He raised his eyebrows at my question.

“I can’t afford it,” he replied succinctly, “but a man in my position quickly learns where to make time and where to let it run.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes,” I replied, “your minor position in the British Government. I didn’t believe you the first time and I’m unlikely to begin now.”

Mycroft Holmes shrugged in an inoffensive manner, indicating his total indifference as to my opinion one way or the other. I forced myself not to clench my teeth. Instead, I smiled.

“Shall we cut to the chase?” I said deliberately, having worked out how much he hated the invasion of the American idiom, “How about we take your by now customary offer to send James to Harrow for the rest of his school education and shove it where the sun don’t shine, just as we did the last time and the time before and, indeed the time before that? Oh, and can we also take my earnest request that you keep your nose out of my life as read – because we both know that’s not going to happen – and just enjoy our tea? I mean, this is a very beautiful room and these scones are excellent. Are you sure I can’t tempt you..?”

The too-quick shake of his head was one of the very few unconsidered gestures I ever observed from Mycroft Holmes. I viewed it as a win, the first and possibly only. I grinned my triumph; the mask, however, barely rippled.

“My dear Lesley,” he began in an avuncular fashion, “what we both know all too well is that James is a remarkable boy. Indeed, with two such extraordinary parents,” I snorted quietly; he ignored me, “it would be unthinkable for him to turn out otherwise, but remarkable people need careful handling. James is bored almost to death at his current school…”

“How do you know?” I shot back immediately. “Have you spoken to him?”

“James is thirteen years of age,” Mycroft Holmes replied easily. “I could not possibly approach him without attracting attention. You may rest assured that I have not been attempting to press my case in any manner other than through your good self. No,” he continued, “it is simply as plain as a pikestaff that the school in which you have placed him is totally insufficient to his needs.”

“The school in which the local authority placed him,” I murmured. “When you live on Ashchurch, you go to Southgate Comprehensive; there is no other option.”

“I am giving you that option, Lesley,” Mycroft Holmes leaned forward in his seat. “James could be very happy at Harrow…”

“Look, Mr Mycroft Holmes,” I swallowed a lump of something bitter and pushed my half-eaten scone away together with the linen napkin.

“I want to believe in your altruism, I really do,” I began, my mouth smiling but my throat closing up, “and I would really like to be able to entrust James’ education to you – it would put my mind at rest to know that he is in good hands, but something just keeps making me hesitate, you know? Something to do with the fact that Harrow _doesn’t take day boys.”_

I searched around for my handbag and found it pushed under my chair.

“I really have to ask you, _Mr Mycroft Holmes,”_ I continued, pushing my chair backwards over the smooth carpeting, “why Harrow, eh? I mean, oblivious as you are, even you had to realise that Eton or Rugby, or even Winchester, would have had me running screaming for the hills, James in tow. No, you knew I wouldn’t stand for a move so far from London. But there are several excellent state and fee-paying day schools here which have as much if not greater expertise with gifted pupils as does Harrow. Frankly, you would have been much more use to us if you’d come out of the woodwork when James was eleven. You could have helped us move house within striking distance of one of the competitive entrance grammar schools. James would have walked the entrance papers, you know he would, and that would have been a far better option. But that wouldn’t have suited your motives, would it?”

I shrugged my coat onto my shoulders. “It seems to me,” I continued struggling into the sleeves, “that the Harrow-or-nothing offer is a not very subtle attempt to detach James from his origins, transplanting him into a society he wasn’t born into…”

“But he _was,_ Lesley,” Mycroft Holmes insisted urgently. “He is my brother’s son – the DNA test confirms it – and as such, half of his heritage comes from a family who _all_ attended Eton, Harrow or Rodean…”

“But I didn’t,” I interrupted. “Everything I achieved, I got on my own merits - no silver spoon for me. I got into Christchurch College, Oxford by sheer academic excellence. I was top of my year in all respects – and we both know the sole reason I went down without graduating, don’t we?”

I gripped the edge of the table. “Don’t you understand?” I hissed, “We don’t need you. We don’t need you and we don’t need Harrow. We don’t need your money, and we don’t need your bloody brother either. What we need is for _you to leave us alone!”_

People were starting to stare. I wiped a trembling hand over my mouth and grabbed for my things.

“Tell you what, Mr Mycroft Holmes,” I said in a lower tone, “Why don’t you do us all a favour, eh? Find me a publisher. Just give me a decent, hard-working little firm looking for one or two new authors a year, a decent distribution and a realistic return and I’ll send James to Highgate – how about that?”

Mycroft Holmes smiled, the insufferable git, and shook his head sadly.

“You know I couldn’t do that, Lesley,” he replied composedly. “If I interfered in your professional life, every time you looked back on your hard-won successes, it would eat at you like acid that I was responsible in part for all of them. You could never cope with it, my dear.”

 _“Try me!”_ I muttered venomously. The fact that he was right on all counts simply served to enrage me all the more. “Don’t bother to see me home – I’ll get the tube.” 

I cursed my loss of control; he knew he could get to me now. I slung my bag over my shoulder and almost ran from the room. The composure of the restaurant staff at Fortnum’s rivalled the residents of Ashchurch Estate when it came to turning a blind eye.


	3. Chapter 3

_“Sherlock!”_

John Watson climbed the stairs at 221B two at a time. “Sherlock, there’s a bloody great _truck_ outside in the road delivering asphalt,” he said from the landing. “Driver swears blind he’s got the right… oh, hello Mycroft.”

John skidded over the threshold and aimed an awkward half-smile at the occupant of his favourite armchair. Mycroft smiled genially and levered himself out of the sagging springs.

“Good afternoon, John,” he said. “Please don’t let me detain you; this was a flying visit only.”

“Then let us be grateful for small mercies,” intoned a lugubrious voice from the window. Sherlock peered out, pushing aside the net curtains.

“I’ll take my leave now,” Mycroft announced, all urbane sophistication, “A pleasure as always, little brother; John. No need to see me out.” Nodding smoothly, he departed. 

John watched Mycroft exit, a small frown line gathering between his eyebrows. “What did he want?” he asked. 

Sherlock gave a vaguely contemptuous eyebrow lift and shrugged dramatically. “What does Mycroft ever want?” he replied.

The question was clearly rhetorical, most of Sherlock’s attention being down in the street. 

John came to join him. “Is that stuff going anywhere, Sherlock?” he pointed to the growing grey pile in the road; it was already attracting a small crowd.

“Eventually, yes,” Sherlock replied, already losing interest. He picked up his violin and examined the bridge critically.

John gave up and left the window, pausing on his way to the kitchen as his attention was attracted by an official-looking document lying innocently on the occasional table closest to where Mycroft had until recently been sitting. John blinked, did a double-take then picked up the paper, narrowing his eyes.

“This is a Birth Certificate,” he stated curiously, “for one James Edward…”

“Give me that,” Sherlock snapped, his long legs propelling him across the room in an instant. The childhood defensive reactions of a younger brother came automatically to the fore and John pivoted quickly to one side, holding the paper deliberately up and away.

“Born 11th November 1999 – that makes him, ah, thirteen, mother Lesley Mary…” 

“I said, give me that!” Sherlock snatched at the fragile paper, almost tearing it in his haste.

“Father, unknown,” John finished, relinquishing the article with wide eyes; his flatmate’s reaction in itself was far more informative. 

Sherlock closed his fist over the document, crumpling the paper. 

John frowned. “Lesley,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Sherlock, isn’t that…?”

“Don’t try to think, John, it doesn’t suit you,” Sherlock interrupted nastily. 

John shook his head. “That one won’t wash, not this time,” he replied. “Look, Sherlock, it was nearly three years ago and I let it go because you clearly didn’t want to talk about it, but this! God, this changes every…”

“I said don’t!” Sherlock all but snarled. His mobile face twisted in rage and John took an involuntary step back. The tableau held for a moment and then Sherlock strode out of the living room, wrenching his coat from the back of a dining chair as he went.

John stood in slack-jawed indecision for a moment as the slam of the front door shook the light fitting. Jerked out of his paralysis, he darted quickly over the threshold intending pursuit just as his phone chimed. Taking the stairs at a run, he checked the text and slowed his pace in confusion as he read:

⌂MHolmes  
You would do much better to let him stew for a  
couple of hours, John. I will keep you posted as  
to his whereabouts.  
MH

John watched three episodes of Top Gear on Dave, made and drank four cups of tea and was on the verge of ordering in pizza in case Sherlock arrived home while he was out collecting it when he heard the bang of the front door and braced himself for the storm.

To John’s confusion, Sherlock was remarkably calm when he arrived, nodding to John as if nothing had happened and quickly disappearing to his room without question or comment. John’s offer of takeaway was met through the closed door with a distracted-sounding refusal and John spent the rest of the evening channel-hopping, half-hoping half-dreading Sherlock’s reappearance.

When that didn’t happen, he finally sloped off to bed around 2am. Turning over an hour or so later in a fitful, restless sleep, he heard the strains of a Bach partita.

 

The following day, the crack of dawn saw John blinking through goo-encrusted eyes, wondering if he was going down with something. To add insult to injury, it was his first day on a locum job in an unfamiliar surgery somewhere in East London. He sighed into the bathroom mirror, almost groaning aloud at the prospect of a tube ride followed by a walk of nearly a half-mile at the other end through the biting cold and rain of an early March morning. He was too professional to cry off at the last minute; he knew the practice manager was desperate with two doctors down due to illness and no other locum available. John scowled at his reflection and picked up his shaver.

The surgery was on the edge of a rundown shopping centre flanked by two equally dismal housing estates. The taxi John had been fortunate enough to flag down at the station sped away almost as soon as John had closed the door, the grim face of the driver telling its own sorry tale. John stood for a moment hands on his hips and surveyed the territory. 

The main entrance to the surgery was covered in graffiti, much of it of a very explicit nature. The paving outside was cracked and sprouting weeds around the edges, the windows were reinforced with rusty ironwork and the guttering was hanging off the flat roof. John averted his eyes from the detritus of takeaway wrappers, broken glass and used condoms littering the small, overgrown car park at the front as he made his approach. Three school-aged truants leaning against the wall smoking regarded him with expressionless eyes and ignored his nod of greeting.

As he grasped the door handle, sticky with something no doubt unpleasant, and entered the waiting area, the noise hit him. The place was packed to overflowing with crying babies, children running and crawling over the none-too-clean floor, elderly people hunched into their seats, shrill-voiced girls scarcely old enough to be out of school trying to discipline snivelling toddlers. The place reeked of rank sweat, stale cigarette smoke and damp clothing. John crossed over to the battered reception desk and shouted over the noise to a woman carrying on two telephone conversations at once. 

“There’s a queue, love,” she told him loudly without looking up.

“The name’s Doctor John Watson,” John bellowed back. “I’m your locum.”

The woman’s eyes widened and fixed on him immediately. “Thank god!” she breathed. She reached out a hand and grabbed his sleeve, evidently expecting him to run away if she didn’t hold on to him. Still maintaining her grasp, she slid out from behind the desk and half-dragged him through a door opposite into what looked like a consulting room. The noise abruptly decreased in volume as the door closed.

“There’s no one else here,” she told him. She gestured towards the waiting room. “Some of this lot have been waiting since around 7.30am. I found them here when I came to open up and more have turned up since. I had to turn some of them away yesterday evening when Doctor Lewis collapsed – he’s in hospital now with pneumonia; if I told him once, I told him a thousand… Anyway, I had to tell them to come back this morning, even though they knew the chances of getting seen were slim to none. Frankly, they’re not happy bunnies right now.”

“I can see that,” John said. “Look, if I’d known it was so desperate, I’d have got here earlier. I’ll get in at seven tomorrow, alright?”

The woman looked at him as though he had just told her the moon really was made out of green cheese. She had dark hair streaked with grey and a tired face which abruptly lit up and became attractive when she smiled.

“God, I’ve won the lottery!” she muttered. She held out her hand. “Lizzie Jones, Practice Manager, and if I stopped to tell you how pleased I am to meet you, we’d get nothing else done today. You do realise I’m never going to let you out of here again, don’t you?”

John flashed her a quick grin and grasped her hand; she had a strong, warm grip. “Give me ten minutes to get settled and boot up the desktop,” he told her. Her smile wobbled slightly and he sighed.

“Make that fifteen to find the paperwork,” he corrected.

 

It was exhausting, back-breaking and sometimes downright heart-breaking work, John decided. He didn’t even have time to appreciate how far out of his depth he was. He was not only required to diagnose and treat but also to advise on Housing Benefit, Disability Allowance, how to appeal against Permanent Exclusion from school and who to contact about an Eviction Notice. Arguments with banks and how to pay fuel bills was a common gripe, especially amongst the elderly who often to choose between enough warmth to function and a meal or two. John found himself worrying about possible issues of malnutrition and vitamin deficiency in both the adults and children.

But rarely had John served anywhere where the results of his labours were so immediately visible. Even his patients in Afghanistan had not needed him as this little community clearly did. Lizzie was a tower of strength; she brought John bad coffee and even worse sandwiches and smiled at him when he made mistakes, which was often. She stayed late correcting his paperwork errors, filling in government forms, keeping track of prescription records. Somehow they got through the first three days, clinging on for grim death by their fingernails.

At lunchtime on Thursday, a washed-out, elderly black man with rheumy eyes wandered in, his nose buried in a handkerchief. John, who was covering Lizzie’s brief lunch break, approached him armed with her clipboard and tried to take medical details. When it transpired, in between bouts of coughing, that the man was actually the Head of Practice and had come back to work well before he had fully recovered from his bout of flu, John had to force himself not to hug the life out of the man on the spot. All he could think was offer up the fervent prayer thank god Sherlock's between cases right now. 

With Doctor Mark Davis back on board, they got through the week with less angst and fewer crises. Friday evening 6.30pm found them facing a surgery mercifully empty of patients, looking like a small war had been waged on its premises.

Lizzie bustled around locking up, pushing John aside as he tried to tidy up some of the litter into the overflowing bins. “Cleaners’ll be in overnight and tomorrow morning early,” she told him briskly. “I’ve broken into the emergency fund and got us a couple of extra hours. I reckon we need ‘em after the week we’ve had.” She slanted a look towards her boss but he made no comment. She scooped up her handbag and made shooing motions towards the door. “Go on, get out of here!” she told them. “I’ve got a hubbie I’ve hardly seen for the past week and I’d like to get home in time to cook him something for tea.”

Mark exchanged a "what can you do?" look with John and Lizzie cuffed him lightly on the shoulder. “Mark, why don’t you take John down the King’s Arms?” she suggested as she set the alarm and prepared to lock up, “I expect you could both do with a pint or two.”

John was about to demur when he caught Lizzie’s eye. Something in her expression made him pause and when Davis indicated that he could be persuaded, John agreed to accompany him.


	4. Chapter 4

“God, I needed that,” John said reverently fifteen minutes later. He lowered his pint of bitter having chugged fully half of it in one deep pull. Davis gave a deep gravelly chuckle, coughing wetly afterwards. 

John raised his eyebrows at the sound. “Sounds like it’s clearing,” he commented, “Your chest, I mean.” 

The other man nodded, wiping his lips with a handkerchief. “Taking its own sweet time,” he replied, “but I’m feeling more like myself today.”

John gave his surroundings the once-over and had to admit they were something of a contrast to most places he frequented with Sherlock. The pub was a bleak, Seventies building made uncompromisingly from breezeblock and pebbledash with an interior to match. The seating was faux-leather upholstered benches against the walls together with hard-seated wooden stools and veneered tables on a worn tiled floor.

“What do you think of our local then, Doctor Watson?” Mark Davis asked, noting John’s scrutiny. 

John shrugged and leaned back in his seat. “The décor’s awful,” he began, “the maintenance is really shoddy, and someone should look at the electrics before the place goes up in flames, but it’s warm and the beer’s good so the landlord obviously knows his stuff. And there’s no bloody piped music either, so that’s a win as far as I’m concerned.”

Mark Davis laughed, precipitating another coughing fit. “You’ll do,” he said taking another drink. “This area, it’s not what you’re used to, I can see that; but you’ll be alright.”

John smiled grimly, thinking of Afghanistan in the past and the less savoury aspects of his work with Sherlock in the present. His unseeing gaze suddenly focussed sharply and he narrowed his eyes, raising his chin to frown at something over Davis’s shoulder. 

The other man swivelled his head in response. “Seen someone you know?” he asked with a knowing smile, “Or just eyeing up the talent? You’re a single man, aren’t you?” 

There were just too many possible replies to that. John refused to take the bait and merely shook his head in response, but he didn’t look away. “I could have sworn…” he began then his eyes sharpened and he reached out a hand to catch Davis’ arm. He nodded without changing his line of sight.

“There’s a woman by the bar, talking to the barman,” John said rapidly, “Brunette, around five-eight, mid-thirties. Do you know her?”

Davis took a quick glance then turned back smirking. “You’re younger than I think you are if you can raise more than a smile after the week we’ve just had. Seriously, John,” he said, his smile fading, “It’s a risky prospect for you in a place like this. You’re a stranger here; I’d give the women here a miss till I was a bit better known, if I were you.”

John dropped his eyes. “No, Mark,” he replied, looking the other full in the face. “I wasn’t going to… Look, it’s not what you think. I do actually recognise her. Shit!”

John looked back at the bar area to find the woman no longer there. He scanned the pub rapidly but all sight of her had vanished. “Bugger!” he said explosively.

“Hey!” Mark Davis laid a meaty hand on John’s shoulder, pushing him gently back into his seat as he tried to rise. He forced John to look at him.

“She’ll be back,” Davis told him. “Whoever she is, she’s most probably local. You’ll find her in here some other night; don’t sweat it.”

John narrowed his eyes. “You know her then?” he demanded suspiciously. 

Davis smiled. “It’s crowded in here, but I know most people by sight,” he replied easily, “and there were at least three attractive brunettes at the bar last I looked. Which one was yours?”

John subsided, staring into his glass. He debated the wisdom of buying another round as a cover for pumping the barman but decided against it. He sighed, the efforts of the past few days suddenly catching up with him.

“I think I’m going to call it a week,” he said, putting a hand up to his shoulder as he worked out a crick in his neck. He drained the dregs in his glass and replaced it on the table, rising to his feet as he did so.

“Thanks for the drink,” he said smiling at the other man. “See you on Monday – 7am according to Lizzie.”

Davis laughed. “She’s always hopeful, our Lizzie,” he replied. “Thank you, John; you’ve made a good start.”

A bark of surprised laughter escaped John as he walked away with a brief wave. He left the warmth of the bar, squaring his shoulders against the biting wind that seemed to insinuate itself down to his bare skin. _A brisk walk,_ he told himself, _with no hanging about; easy_. He turned up his collar against the drizzle and looked wearily down the road ahead. 

 

Living in Baker Street had made him soft, he realised; he only ever had to walk a few paces to find a cab for hire. Here, on the edges of the Ashchurch and Meadowbrook Park Estates in the London Borough of Rotherwick on a dark, if not particularly late, Friday evening there was not a taxi to be had for love nor money. John weighed up his options: he could take the main road around the two estates bearing to the west and add at least half a mile onto his journey; he could walk through Meadowbrook; or through Ashchurch.

John set his jaw, shivering. An extra half mile on top of the walk he already faced to the nearest tube station was rapidly becoming an exceedingly unattractive prospect. Meadowbrook was probably shorter at this time of night, but his taxi had come via Ashchurch that morning and consequently he had at least some idea of the route.

“Ashchurch it is,” he muttered, turning to plod down the dripping street.

 

The rain turned to an oily mist within two hundred yards, but John had no trouble keeping his bearings; the three looming 25 storey tower blocks comprising most of Ashchurch Estate were difficult to miss. It was built on an old railway cutting, John’s cabbie had told him. You had to drive around it but you could cut through on foot using the bridges and walkways so long as you avoided the green area below. An innocent-seeming tennis court and a children’s playground were a definite no-go area, he had been told; it was a popular place for skirmishes between local gangs with their continual turf wars and there was a certain amount of drug activity. John felt his mental hackles rise as he noted the steep banks and the lack of adequate entry/exit points. The place was like a rodent trap; an invitation to muggers and vandals. 

The concrete walkways were wide enough to accommodate two people walking side by side and no more. They had high walls designed to prevent accidental or semi-intentional falls but John’s lack of stature meant that they were just high enough to block his view. He sighed; who in god’s name had designed this bear trap?

John set foot on the main walkway. His instinctive reaction was to move as quickly as possible, but experience taught him the value of a considered approach. He walked carefully but swiftly, cursing his lack of foresight in failing to bring a torch. The high walls were a definite obstacle but he didn’t really need sight to tell him something untoward was happening ahead of him.

John slowed and quietened his footsteps as indistinct murmuring sharpened into the rise and fall of language. Several voices, he noted, at least one woman and two, no three, others, probably teenagers by the thin edge of the tone.

“Come on, Toby,” the woman’s voice rang out, sympathetic; persuasive. “What are you doing with these people? You know me; you don’t want to hurt me.”

“Who says he don’t?” interjected a high-pitched, rough voice. “He’s with us now ain’t ya, Shark?”

“’Course I am,” a much younger voice replied, puffed up with false bravado that John could hear clearly, even from twenty paces.

“You know I’m not going to keep quiet about this, don’t you?” the woman continued, ignoring the exchange. “Toby, you’re in enough trouble already; don’t make it worse. You might think the local copshop is a waste of air, but they know me down there and they can make your life very difficult if they want. Didn’t you escape an ASBO by the skin of your teeth last time? What do you think they’ll do to you if you’re party to an Assault, eh?”

Her tone was calm and deliberately low-pitched and her manner was easy but John could hear the edge of breath from an elevated heart rate and the clipped consonants of incipient panic.

“Listen to ‘er!” said another voice, one with a nasty edge to it. “She thinks she can tell us what to do. Look, darlin’ – you got it wrong. We’re the ones who make the rules around here; you do as we say or we give you somethin’ to worry about, alright?”

There was a startled gasp from the woman at which point John, deciding to make his presence known before the situation passed the point of no return, strode around the corner, his bearing deliberately military.

“Evening lads,” he said nodding in a not-unfriendly fashion. “Is there a problem here?”

There were three of them, all under the age of sixteen, all dressed in the nondescript jeans, hoodie and trainers which seemed to be the de facto uniform for anything young, male and trying to be badass. John aimed his question towards the fourth member of the group whose face was half-hidden by the hood of her parka but was unmistakeably female. 

“It’s okay,” she said, slightly breathless, “I can handle it.”

One of the youths gave a high-pitched giggle. “’Course she can,” he said taking a step forward, “now, how about you fuck off and mind your own business, eh?”

John held his arms loosely at his sides and stolidly refused to react as the boy pushed himself into John’s personal space. John shook his head, eyes never leaving the boy’s face. “If I were you,” he said slowly, thoughtfully, “I’d think twice about threatening an unarmed woman in front of a retired army Captain.”

“Is that so?” the boy replied, turning his face sideways to John’s so that their noses nearly brushed. John blinked once but otherwise remained still. 

The boy suddenly reared back and threw a punch directly at John’s face. It was sloppy and inexpert; John pivoted eighteen inches to the right, grabbed the boy’s wrist and slammed him, face-first, into the concrete wall. The kid shrieked and struggled, trying to kick out at John’s ankles, but John had the boy’s right arm twisted up against his back and was using his weight to keep him immobile. Once he realised that he was totally helpless, the boy let loose with a torrent of invective, all as vehement as it was lacking in imagination.

“Seriously,” John said between gritted teeth, leaning a bit on the kid’s arm, “shut up. Really, I mean it – shut up!”

An insistent tapping on his forearm drew John’s attention away from his captive.

“I think you can let him go now,” the woman said. She turned aside to reveal the disappearing figures of the other two teenagers taking off at speed into the gloom. John shifted his weight and allowed the boy to stand up. 

The kid wrenched his arm away from John and backed off, glaring. “You fucker!” he yelled. 

John shook his head. “You got off lightly this time,” he said in a mild tone, “Don’t try it again; you won’t get another warning, any of you.”

The youth ran off, still swearing. The woman sighed, her face still hidden. “You realise you’ve probably done more harm than good there, don’t you?” she said conversationally.

John frowned. “I’m sorry?” he said. 

The woman pushed her hood back from her face. “John Watson,” she said, shaking her head. She gave a funny little laugh, “My hero. What are the odds?”

John stared, a frown creasing his forehead. “So it _was_ you!” he said, “In the pub, I mean. You were at the bar – I wasn’t seeing things.”

“No, not tonight at least,” she replied with a faint smile. The streetlight was poor and there was no moon, but nevertheless she was unmistakeable.

“Lesley,” John said wonderingly, then gathered the shreds of his dignity around him. “Punched any private detectives recently?” 

It was a low blow, so to speak, but it beat the awkward silence which seemed to be the only alternative. 

The woman shook her head. “Not this week, no,” she replied seriously, “but keep going, John Watson, and that situation could change very quickly!”

John ducked his head, acknowledging his lack of grace. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry to have shoved my oar in where it was clearly not wanted, but could you just tell me one thing? How in god’s name were you in any way, shape or form, in control of that situation I just saw?”

Lesley sighed. “Those boys, well, they’re – from the local school,” she began, “They belong to families who live in the same block as me. They’re part of a much larger gang and they know me. They don’t exactly like me – they don’t like anyone – and they’d do anyone over for a packet of fags or a fix, but at least they leave the little kids alone and one else poaches on their turf.”

“I see,” John nodded grimly, “Better the devil you know. And I just upset the apple cart, is that it?”

She nodded, lips pressed firmly together. “Pretty much,” she replied tersely.

“Can you fix it?”

“Probably. Now, if you’ve finished trying to clean up the East End single handed, I’d quite like to get home.” 

“Where do you live?” John responded immediately. “I’ll walk you there.” 

Lesley held up both her hands, palms outermost. “No fear,” she replied with a faint chuckle, “After that little debacle, the last thing I need is to be seen taking you home with me. I think you’ve done enough for one night, don’t you?”

She threw her hood over her head once again and took off down the walkway with no further ceremony. She moved too swiftly for John to follow immediately, but the walkway had no exits for some considerable way and as he emerged onto the forecourt of Bradley Point, he saw her disappear into the blackness between it and McKinnon Point, heading towards the smaller block at the rear of the site.

“Dublin Close,” murmured John to himself. There were about 20 or so flats in that block; easier to find her there than in one of the Points.


	5. Chapter 5

James finally came home around 2am. He knew I was waiting up for him but he ignored me, going into the kitchen for a glass of water before disappearing into his bedroom. I rose from the sofa, turned off the television and padded down the corridor, pushing open the door without knocking.

“Go away,” James said but his heart wasn’t in it. He was lying on his bed, his face pushed into the pillow. He had left the light off; he hadn’t even taken off his shoes. I sat down on the edge of the bed and slowly pushed my fingers through his messy, dark hair; he let me.

“Where were you?” I asked quietly. 

He made no answer; I tried again. “I looked for you, you know,” I told him, “down and around the pub. Ran into Shark with a couple of chums.”

James stirred and sat up. “They do anything to you?” he asked. His eyes were pale and flat-looking but his pupils were normal. 

I shook my head. “Nah,” I replied, “They wouldn’t dare.”

James swung his legs over the edge of the bed blinking in the half light. He tried a weak smirk.

“So where were you then?” I asked him again after a short silence. 

He shrugged. “Around,” he replied. “Why’d you look for me in the King’s? They know how old I am in there – they won’t even sell me smokes.” 

I gave him a look and he held my eyes steadily. “I didn’t,” I told him. “I know Derek wouldn’t give you the time of day without me around. I just wondered if he’d heard anything, that’s all.”

James narrowed his eyes. “Something happened,” he announced flatly. I looked away.

“Mum,” he said, an unspoken sigh in the tone. I rolled my eyes.

“No hiding from you, is there?” I said ruefully. 

“They don’t call me Sherlock for nothing,” he replied, mock-modestly. 

I tensed all over. “What?” I demanded far too quickly. 

James frowned, his eyes suddenly sharpening. I wanted to hide from him and not for the first time.

“Interesting,” he said, a faint upward drawl in his tone. 

I shook my head. “Don’t deduce me, James,” I snapped, “I had enough games with your little friends this evening to last me a lifetime without contending with your attempts to get inside my head into the bargain.” I sighed and massaged my temples against an impending headache; I could sleep for England, if only my brain would let me.

James shuffled along the edge of the bed and leaned his head on my shoulder. His arms crept around my waist and he leaned into me with a tired sigh. I hugged him hard against my chest and wondered not for the first time what would become of us.

“Love you, mum,” James muttered, almost too quietly for me to hear. I felt tears prickle the backs of my eyelids. I opened my mouth to murmur a reply as the chime of a text alert interrupted the moment. James pulled away reaching for his back pocket. In the dim half-light, his face was cast into sharp relief by the greenish light of the screen. I grabbed his wrist; he looked up, surprised.

“That’s an iPhone, James,” I said in a level tone, “The latest model; where did it come from?”

“It’s Shark’s,” James replied absently, still texting, “I borrowed it overnight, just to see.”

“Overnight, eh?” I repeated, nodding. I gritted my teeth. “James, I’ve heard that text alert from you all week. Now, I’ll ask you again; where did it come from?”

James slid quickly down from the bed like an eel. He sighed, looking suddenly much, much older than his 13 years. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me,” he replied then darted for the door. 

I moved to intercept. “James!” I called, mindful of the sleepers in the next room. He slid away from my grasping hands and ducked down the hallway.

“James!” I shouted, hearing him open the front door. I followed him at a run out onto the balcony but his footsteps against the concrete fading into the night were all that remained.

“Lesley?” Jill came up behind me rubbing her eyes. I leaned my head into my hands.

“Go back to bed,” I said wearily without looking at her. Tomorrow was another day.

 

By the time dawn came, my available options had narrowed down to one. I had no real idea how to go about it, but as I left the estate for the local newsagent, I noted a battered CCTV camera blinking at me. I turned to face it.

“We need to talk,” I told it in a resigned tone of voice, “and, so help me, if you say I told you so just once I’m off, you hear?”

I decided to skip the morning paper and headed on out of the estate, working my way further west as I went. I reached a tube station and bought a single ticket for zones 1-2 with very little idea of my destination. I stood hanging on to a strap brooding while commuters and shoppers milled around me. Bored, I got off at Aldgate and set off down the Whitechapel Road. I was in no way surprised when a highly-polished, black car slowed to purr quietly at my heels.

“You should be a little more careful, you know,” Mycroft Holmes admonished as I slid next to him on the back seat. “Other, less trustworthy people also drive cars of this type; you could be putting yourself into considerable danger.”

“Considering you are the most dangerous man I am ever likely to meet,” I replied with some amusement, “I find your concern touching if not exactly appropriate.” Mycroft Holmes acknowledged my parry with a small incline of his head.

“I imagine you had to do some fancy footwork in order to make the time to see me this morning,” I riposted, not at all remorseful.

“Yes, very,” Mycroft Holmes agreed, “The Foreign Secretary was less than pleased with me, but that is among the least of my worries, particularly where family is concerned.”

I laughed out loud. “You’re good, I’ll give you that,” I replied, smiling broadly. “Come on, Mr Mycroft Holmes. Anything concerning your little brother transcends any possible familial loyalty you may or may not possess. You’re afraid of him; afraid of what he might do.” The muscles of his face remained motionless, his expression impassive, but I counted it as a hit nonetheless.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft Holmes began slowly, “is a law unto himself and currently not what we are here to discuss.”

“Oh, really?” I raised my eyebrows, “Very well, you tell me – what are we here to discuss?”

“You wish me to deduce?” he asked with a faint smile, “Very well, Lesley, I will indulge you. Usually I leave this kind of thing to my brother but occasionally one likes to take a little mental exercise of the like.”

Mycroft Holmes steepled his fingers and appeared to focus his mind. “You sent out what you consider to be a distress call born of extreme anguish because you feel helpless in the face of an untenable situation,” he began. “You have discovered very recently evidence which has led you to two separate conclusions; firstly that your son has become involved with a local gang known for its violent tendencies and involvement in and with drug trafficking; and secondly that he has access to fashionably expensive technology way out of your financial orbit. You have assumed, understandably, that these two facts are connected and you have realised that despite all your best intentions, you are now completely out of your depth.”

Mycroft Holmes paused to gather breath and began again. “You are also increasingly concerned about the gradually deteriorating state of your domestic finances. Your own resources have long since run out, you can find no work in your chosen profession, your partner and her daughter are in the habit of outspending their own pitifully meagre income, not through any great extravagance, and you have been seriously considering using the services of a local moneylender just to buy another week or two’s grace.”

My head had sunk lower and lower into my chest throughout this chilly little recitation and I let the full force of what I was about to do unfold over me. I shuddered.

“In the words of my famous little brother,” Mycroft Holmes said, “was I right?”

I nodded slowly. “On all counts,” I replied, “except for the fact that Jill and I aren’t in a partnership, we’re just friends.” 

I looked up at him, tears in my eyes. “You have no ability to care,” I told him, “and you have no compassion. Your life is based on profit and loss, a favour for a favour; the left hand and the right hand. I will give you my son, Mr Mycroft Holmes, and I will not fight your decisions. At least this way he will be safe.”

Mycroft was quiet for a moment, and then he turned to me with an expression I would almost have called pitying if I had not known better. “Lesley,” he began, “your financial situation is indeed parlous, but it is not yet desperate. You will find a publisher but it will take time. In the meantime, I have taken the liberty of sending your Curriculum Vitae to one or two publishers of minor periodicals. They may contact you from time to time for the type of copy known, I believe, as an Opinion on such diverse topics as cosmetics, the political situation in Iran and genetic engineering in the British countryside. Not what you want, I know, but it will at least bring in a wage.”

I stared. “You’ve got me a Column?” I struggled to speak; he held up a hand and my protests died in my throat.

“Not a column as such,” he replied easily. “Despite being a tolerable wordsmith, Lesley, you lack the requisite experience with the media industry to take on a regular project of this nature. However, your prose is light and readable when you make the effort and should appeal to the chattering classes. You should do well.”

I opened and shut my mouth once or twice without making any sound. “Mycroft,” I managed finally.

He shook his head. “Hear me out,” he continued over me. “I have already put in motion an enquiry as to why your friend has been treated in such a miserly fashion by the British Armed Forces on the death of her husband…”

“But he wasn’t on active service when he died…” I protested, but this time Mycroft Holmes merely silenced me with a look.

“I am confident the Enquiry will result in a better settlement, both from the Pensions Division and from the insurance company which used a technicality to escape a greater liability,” he continued. “The settlement will include arrears for the past three years and the insurance company will also pay a meaningful sum in damages to avoid bad publicity. As a result, your friend should be able to command an income substantial enough to move away from Ashchurch Estate and into a safer, more suitable area of London where her daughter will find it easier to obtain the therapy she needs to complete her secondary education.”

I swallowed and stared at him with wide eyes. “And for all this, you will take my son away?” I replied. 

Mycroft shook his head. “Eton would have been the ideal place from my point of view,” he replied, “but I am prepared to compromise, not least because I consider it likely that you would move heaven and earth to thwart me if I did not. Believe me, I have no desire to dredge up past wrongs and re-open old wounds, Lesley, particularly in a public courtroom.”

I gave a twisted smile. “Yes,” I replied, “I can only imagine what the exposure would do to Sher- to your brother. You know, it would almost be worth it just to watch him squirm.”

Mycroft Holmes shook his head. “I was thinking of James,” he replied. Not a ripple crossed those bland, pale features; he had himself well under control. “The work which will eventually come your way will bring in an acceptable level of income,” he continued, “more than sufficient to keep you in a modest establishment some little distance from Harrow School itself. James will live with you during exeat weekends and also for those periods of the school holidays when he is not otherwise engaged.”

I took a long breath then shook my head. “Mr Holmes,” I began, “if you offered me Highgate …”

Mycroft Holmes winced visibly then shook his head. “An excellent institution with first-rate staff – for a co-educational day school,” he declared with a faint sniff. “No – James needs the focus which a boarding school can provide. He can be great, you know, but if that intellect remains unchannelled, we could have a maverick on our hands.” He paused and his eyes became distant. 

“You could allow…” I began. Mycroft Holmes once again stopped me from continuing.

“I said I would compromise,” he interrupted, “and this is as far as I will go. I feel very strongly that James himself should be consulted on the issue, Lesley. He may well have come to certain conclusions himself.”

I stared. “He’s thirteen,” I replied flatly, “He’s really not old enough to judge, surely.”

Mycroft Holmes smiled and shook his head. “Now therein hangs a tale,” he told me. “If we backtrack a little way to your worries over James’ involvement with a local gang and also the sudden increase in his personal financial situation, I think I may be able to alleviate your anxiety to a degree.”

I faced him down. “What could you possibly know about that?” I demanded. 

Mycroft Holmes shrugged and raised an eyebrow. “Only that a new player has emerged in the hotly contest field of academic fraud. A player so good that even one or two university lecturers have been caught reusing his pithy phrases in their lectures. His work is quite simply far too apposite for its purpose – he’s wasted assisting mediocre undergraduates gain their 2:2s.”

“Go on,” I said between gritted teeth. 

Mycroft Holmes gave a small smile. “He has been careful to protect himself; very careful indeed,” he mused, “but when up against the combined weight of MI6, no-one’s IT skills are sufficient to keep running forever; he put up a very good front but they ran him to ground in the end. You might possibly have found James a little edgy over the past few weeks as a result.”

Mycroft Holmes laughed, a slightly surprised, rusty sound. “Simply put, James has been selling essays and dissertations over the internet to university undergraduates, Lesley,” Mycroft Holmes explained gently. 

I opened my mouth to speak then closed it again hurriedly. “But…” I managed a moment later, “that’s – illegal… isn’t it?”

“Oh, extremely,” Mycroft Holmes replied, his tone far too composed, “In fact, I imagine there are a number of universities who would jump at the chance to pillory James thoroughly for his cheek. Of course, once they discovered his age, they would likely be as eager as we are to conceal his existence. No one likes to be outdone, particularly by a child prodigy.”

Mycroft Holmes gave me a very old fashioned look as I tried to wrap my brain around what he had just told me. He leaned forward and to my immense surprise laid his hand gently over mine.

“I think it’s time James had a say in his future, don’t you?” he said quietly, “Oh, and welcome to the family, Lesley. There was never really any doubt and DNA tests are far more reliable these days, but I think what you’ve just heard confirms it, don’t you agree?”


	6. Chapter 6

John tried to talk to Mycroft but stones were more responsive.

“The situation is well in hand,” he was told firmly, “and it should in no way concern you. All I need from you is to pass on the occasional message to Sherlock, since he won’t talk to me, and not to ask questions. Is that really too much to ask, John? Of a friend?”

John was having none of it. “If it doesn’t concern me, Mycroft, why did you leave James’ Birth Certificate at 221B? By my favourite armchair, I might add,” he retorted. “And since when are we _friends?”_

“John, you wound me!” Mycroft smiled. “I was actually speaking of my brother,” he continued easily, “and as to my absent-mindedness with regard to the document to which you refer, put it down to age beginning to take its toll on my mental faculties, John.” He smiled artlessly. “After all, I am approaching forty.”

John gave a disbelieving snort. “And the rest,” he responded rudely. 

Mycroft looked rather put out at that. “You could always ask Sherlock?” he continued, deceptively mildly. John gave him a look and refrained from comment.

 

“So you found your mystery lady, then?” 

Not exactly a question, more a statement delivered for effect rather than information. John found himself smiling inwardly at his automatic use of Sherlock’s deductive processes. He turned to regard Mark Davis over the rim of his chipped coffee mug and smiled up at him from his desk.

“You know I did,” he replied evenly. 

Davis lifted his mug in a wordless salute and pushed himself off the doorframe. As he sauntered into the room, John shifted a few files into a neat pile and squared them off. 

“Always good to get it from the source,” Davis said easily, parking one buttock on the edge of the desk. “So, what’s she to you, then?”

A tiny warning flagged up at the back of John’s mind. He leaned back in his chair.

“I could be reaching here,” he said thoughtfully, “but I’ll give it a shot. You’re not a nosy man, Mark, and that question is so out of character I’d put money on the answer being much more important to you than you’re making it out.”

Davis’ face stayed blank but a muscle twitched at his jaw. 

John sighed and leaned forward on his elbows. “Lesley is, well, just a girl I met,” John began carefully. “I just – came across her once, I think – no, I know I did. It was a little while back.”

“On one of your cases?” Davis asked, “With that Sherlock Holmes guy?”

John went very still. “How long have you known about that?” he said, his voice very light. 

Davis shrugged. “From the beginning,” he replied, “from the moment I met you a fortnight ago.”

John nodded without smiling. “My blog?” he asked, unsurprised when Davis returned his nod. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I’m saying it now,” Davis replied. “So, what does Holmes want with her?” 

John narrowed his eyes. “What is this, Mark?” he asked, his tone beginning to develop an edge. “If she’s a part of your life in any way, if you don’t want me going near her for whatever reason, then say so. Put your cards on the table and tell me what the deal is so that I don’t go blundering into any more sensitive situations.” He stretched to rub a hand around the back of his neck, over the rapidly tensing muscles. “Christ!” he muttered, “It’s like living on top of a minefield – and I should know.”

Davis held his gaze then his eyes skittered away and he took refuge in his coffee. “There are no cards to show you, John,” he said eventually. “It’s just that, well, Lesley – she’s been through enough. She’s a nice lady who didn’t deserve what life threw at her. She didn’t grow up round here, although you wouldn’t know it the way she’s fitted in over the past decade or so.”

Davis paused and looked John directly in the eye. “Lesley’s well-liked around here,” he reiterated. “If Holmes has taken on anything involving Lesley then you tell him from me, he can just hand it straight back where it came from. If he so much as sneezes in her general direction, he’ll have more trouble than even he knows how to deal with.”

John held up his hand palms outermost. “Okay, okay,” he said, eyes wide, “there’s no need to make threats, Mark. I promise you my interest in Lesley was – is – purely personal. Sherlock knows nothing about her and cares less, and besides,” he rubbed the back of his neck again ruefully, “I didn’t exactly show up very well over that incident, as you might have heard.”

Davis gave a lopsided smile and a low chuckle. “We’ve all been there, man,” he replied easily, but his eyes were steady, “Just make sure you’re telling me the truth, okay?”

Davis turned slowly on his heel and ambled out of John’s office, shrugging off John’s speculative stare like a duck in the rain.

 

“Aha! Alright then, Sherlock, walk out again, why don’t you? Be my guest; it’s pissing down cats and dogs outside, so if you’d sooner let your hair get rained on than talk to me about Lesley and James then feel free; I’m not going to stop you.”

John stood in the middle of the living room at 221B, fists planted firmly on his hips, chin thrust forward belligerently. Sherlock scowled mightily; John had the distinct impression that if looks could kill, he’d be in the crematorium waiting area as they spoke.

“John, this is simply childish,” Sherlock growled.

John blinked. “Am I hearing this right?” he asked, not entirely rhetorically. “You are accusing me of childishness?”

“Yes, that’s what I said – do try to listen more carefully,” Sherlock snapped back, “I’m quite sure your age is responsible for a certain amount of deafness, not to mention the effects of gunfire and explosives on the inner ear, but you must learn to compensate. Or purchase a hearing aid.”

John swallowed down his irritation. “Sherlock, you have a son,” he began quietly. “He is thirteen years old and you have yet to meet him. You’ve missed his whole childhood, for god’s sake; you owe him some kind of attention now that you know of his existence!”

“I owe him nothing!” Sherlock sprang away from the door and paced agitatedly, pulling at his hair. He sighed and slouched over to the sofa, plucking meditatively at the strings of his violin with one hand.

“I am reliably informed that I am indeed this person’s biological father,” he began in a calmer voice, “however, I am only forced to believe it due to overwhelming physical evidence. I have no memory of anything connected with my sole year at Oxford – I assume I deleted it along with anything else irrelevant.”

John took a deep breath and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Sherlock,” he began more quietly, “you had sex with your college next-door-neighbour. You treated her like a paid call girl but without the financial incentive. You then extracted yourself from her life swiftly enough to give her whiplash, ending up on the other side of the country, leaving her no clue as to why or what she might have done to deserve such treatment…”

“This is utterly ridiculous!” Sherlock interrupted furiously. “Why on earth would that be a problem to her? According to you, we were merely neighbours not lovers.”

“You didn’t even have the good sense or courtesy to use protection!” John thundered, finally driven over the edge.

“That fact,” Sherlock shouted back, “is unfortunately self-evident. However, you seem to be continually missing the vital ingredient here, no matter how often I remind you – _I don’t remember- any of it!”_

“Whether you remember is not the point,” John spat.

“Then what _is_ the point, John?” Sherlock shot back. “Just because your biological clock is ticking loudly enough to rival The Speaking Clock and your pathetic attempts to pass on your inadequate genetic code have been thwarted time after time, doesn’t mean that the rest of us have the misfortune to be so angst-ridden about the subject. If you have genuine dynastic ambitions, you should choose your girlfriends with greater attention to their long-term motivations and less to their chest measurements.”

It was a low blow and John filed it away for later consideration. “The big difference between our respective circumstances, Sherlock, is that so far I have failed to procreate,” he rallied without missing a beat, “by accident or design – it doesn’t matter. You, however, have a responsibility to the future, whether you like it or not…”

Sherlock propelled himself violently off the sofa, unbelted dressing gown flying around him, grabbed his violin and drew the bow savagely across the strings, producing a frenzy of double-stopping that, had he been in earshot, would have sent Itzhak Perlman’s agent scrabbling for a contract.

John winced and held his hands over his ears. He glanced out of the window – yep, still throwing it down out there. Grabbing his laptop, he retired to his room to research noise-cancelling headphones and just maybe make enquiries about trumpet lessons; attack was, after all, the best form of defence.

 

The body looked terribly small and vulnerable, John thought. There was an involuntary silence broken only by the shuffling of booted feet and the distinctive _crrck_ of walkie-talkies as police officers gently but firmly herded neighbours and inquisitive passers-by away from the ramshackle children’s play area. The two-toned horns had been silenced although the flashing lights served as both a draw to the curious and a warning to the guilty. John sighed and closed his eyes briefly; there was always a feeling of hopeless despair surrounding the death of a child, no matter how little childlike the person inside the body had been.

Toby Greaves, aka Shark, was propped half-sitting against an old rusty children’s roundabout. His head was slumped over his chest and one leg was drawn up as though he struggled to rise to his feet before giving in to the inevitable.

Sherlock stepped back, stripping off his gloves with brutal efficiency and shoving them into his pocket.

“Stabbed,” he said succinctly, “inexpertly with a two-inch blade. It was a lucky shot – hit the pulmonary artery and he bled out into the chest cavity. It would all have happened very quickly. No mystery about this one, Lestrade, why did you call me in? It’s a simple assault by person or persons unknown – boring. Even Anderson could have dealt with this without assistance.” 

Sherlock’s tone betrayed irritation, the glare in his eyes impatience. Chief Inspector Lestrade blinked slowly and gave an unvoiced sigh. 

“The young lad was thirteen years old last month,” Lestrade said quietly. “He had recently started running with one of the local gangs, hanging around the High Street, getting cautioned for disruptive behaviour on a Saturday night, you know the kind of thing. A couple of the gang members have form already – they’re older, in their late teens/early twenties.”

“Yes, yes,” Sherlock returned, “How is this relevant?” 

Lestrade shrugged. “Background, Sherlock,” he replied in a curiously dead tone, “You know how you’re always telling me to observe as well as look.” He made a gesture and a young PC obediently came forward carrying a battered cardboard box.

“It’s not the murder itself I thought would interest you,” Lestrade continued. Sherlock frowned curiously at the box but did not attempt to touch it.

“Greaves was carrying this when he was attacked,” Lestrade told them. “Whether robbery was the motive or just a sideline we don’t know as yet.”

Sherlock snatched the box from the startled PC, stared into its depths and scowled, inhaling deeply. Donning his gloves once again, he fished around inside, bringing out several glass bottles, their contents, dry and liquid alike, spilling freely over the interior.

“Sodium borohydride, dichloromethane, methanol,” he murmured, examining the labels. “What would a thirteen year-old delinquent want with this little collection, eh?”

“What would anyone want with it?” Lestrade replied to Sherlock’s rhetorical question.

“Synthesis,” John answered crisply. The other two turned to stare at him; he gestured to the box. 

“Sodium borohydride is a reducing agent,” John continued, “and dichloromethane is a solvent. They’re commonly used in the production of pharmaceuticals. What else is in there?” 

John seized the box, poking through the remaining contents with a worn ballpoint pen. 

Sherlock’s head shot up like a pointer at a shoot. “Of course!” he said almost under his breath. He turned to the hapless PC standing nearest and clicked his fingers peremptorily under the man’s nose.

“You!” he snapped, “and the rest of your so-called colleagues – make yourselves useful! You’re looking for anything discarded from this box. It could be broken, it could be labelled or not, and it could be within any radius of this spot. I need to see the stuff the Greaves boy had in this parcel, and I need it now!”

The three youngsters looked at each other uncertainly but Lestrade caught on immediately. Eyes wide, he called for lights and a fingertip search of the play area and environs. There was precious little else in the immediate vicinity, but one of the PCs struck lucky in an alcove under one of the walkways.

“Must have holed up here to examine what he’d got,” Lestrade said, taking in the scene. Sherlock dived straight in, pulling on his gloves once again and could be heard muttering as he poked about with the aid of a small torch snatched from Lestrade’s pocket.

“John!” he snapped, beckoning abruptly. John immediately moved in to examine Sherlock’s find.

“Safrole,” Sherlock announced, squatting on the damp concrete prodding at an empty glass bottle with a pencil. “At least, that’s what the label says; too much contamination from everything else to tell from the odour.” 

John nodded; the reek of chemicals was very strong. He pointed at an empty brown container flung aside in a corner. “Is that what I think it might be?” he asked.

Sherlock shrugged. “Have to get the lab onto it before we know for sure; it won’t have a label on it,” he replied, “but I’m pretty certain I know.” He turned his head to regard John in profile.

John nodded. “MeNH2.HCl,” he said. “What d’you think they’re making? Amphetamines?” 

Sherlock shook his head. “I think this is probably more ambitious than that,” he replied. John’s eyes met his in unspoken understanding and they shared a nod of agreement.

“But why on such a small scale?” John asked, “I mean, these amounts are scarcely enough to scratch the surface. Looking at that, I’d say it was more, well, experimental than industrial, wouldn’t you say?”

“I would,” Sherlock agreed fixing John with an appraising air, “and I’m glad you’ve followed me this far. Perhaps you’re not such a hopeless case after all.”

“I am a doctor, you know,” John replied mildly but he ducked his head to hide his pleased smile at the backhanded compliment. Sherlock rose suddenly to his feet yelling for Lestrade. John followed a moment later and listened while Sherlock expounded at length to the Detective Inspector on such diverse topics as fingerprinting (ridiculous seeing as the heavy rain in the night would have washed away anything of use), the lack of relevant information from footprints (Lestrade’s collection of ignorant plods having trampled the evidence on arrival) and the likelihood of finding the two youths responsible for Toby Greaves’ death hiding out with the homeless beneath the underpass half a mile away.

John’s mind wandered. His eyes roved over the ground and fixed on a lone piece of brown wrapping paper caught down one of the cracks in the concrete. He bent to retrieve it, half-convinced that it was unrelated to anything, when his eye caught the remains of a white label. He turned the scrap of paper into the light and his heart caught in his mouth. An unfamiliar address, printed on a computer-generated label, but the name of the addressee sent his eyebrows into his hairline.

“Sherlock,” he called, beckoning urgently when the other man looked up.

“What is it?” Sherlock demanded casting a quick glance over the paper and shrugging. “It’s a common enough name – don’t start jumping at shadows, John.”

John shook his head. “I’m not,” he replied, “and I don’t recognise the address, but I think it’s a bloody big coincidence that we’re on the Ashchurch Estate and he lives just beyond in Dublin Close, don’t you?”

Sherlock’s face snapped shut quicker than an oyster shell; he turned his back in a whirl of quality wool and stomped away from John, back to the crime scene. John lowered his eyes to read the label once again.

The address line read: Mr James Holmes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While working on Deallocated (finally!) I noticed that Defragmented only had seven chapters. When I looked to find out why, I realised that this one was missing, for some reason. I was slightly put out that no one had noticed, but I guess I can't exactly complain seeing as I didn't notice either until now and the thing does seem to make a kind of sense plot-wise without it. My apologies yet again for incompetence - it's going to be a bit confusing to receive a notification on a fic that was labelled "Complete" months ago, I know, and I'm sorry!

Watching Sherlock refuse to face facts once again, John’s patience finally ran out. 

“Fine!” he muttered under his breath, shoving the brown paper into an evidence bag and thrusting it at a nearby PC. He squared his shoulders, came to a decision and took off on foot.

He didn’t even have to break in. Lizzie had enjoyed her first Saturday lie-in for three months last weekend and John still had the surgery keys plus the codes for the alarms. Heart pounding, he resisted the temptation to use the computer knowing full well that his activities would be logged. Instead, he unlocked Lizzie’s precious filing cabinets and spent considerably more time searching through her paper records before finding what he needed. Armed with the requisite information, he took off on foot to Dublin Close; he was done with pussyfooting around.  
In the end, John only had to wait ten minutes for someone to come home and, as luck would have it, Jill recognised him and greeted him like an old friend.

“What’s been going on in No-Man’s-Land?” she asked curiously as she ushered him into the flat, murmuring something about tea and biscuits. “Another gang fight, I suppose. Criminal the way these kids behave – parents ought to be shot. Drugs again, I’ll bet.”

John demurred, intending to give her space to make his tea before he launched into a long and no doubt distressing explanation. He was on his second cup of tea and Jill’s third series of complaints about the local community, unable to fit a word in edgewise, when the scrape of a key in the front door announced Lesley’s arrival. She pushed through into the kitchen and rounded on Jill with single-minded intensity.

“I take it James hasn’t come home?” she asked. Jill shook her head and opened her mouth to try to introduce John but Lesley ignored her. 

Gnawing her lip, Lesley paced the kitchen. “No one’s seen him all day,” she said. “He hasn’t been in school – not that that’s so uncommon, but there’s usually some kind of reason behind it. I’m not even sure he came home last night.” She turned anguished eyes on her flatmate. “He’s thirteen, Jill; he’s still a baby!”

Lesley's hands were shaking and John wanted to clasp them, force her down into a chair and push her thoughts into an orderly frame to extract the information more efficiently. Instead he smiled reassuringly at her.

“Hello again,” he said carefully, “we met a couple of weeks ago on one of the walkways? Well, actually, that wasn’t the first time we met. The _very_ first time was when you punched my friend Sherlock Holmes in the face, but you had your reasons and I believe they were pretty sound at the time.”

Lesley stared and then more or less bared her teeth at him. “What do you know?” she hissed. “You aren’t here by accident, there’s no chance of that. You must know something or you wouldn’t be here, you wouldn’t know how to find me. Who have you been talking to? That slimy git, Mycroft Holmes? Did he put you up to this?” 

Lesley paused and narrowed her eyes. “It’s that crazy friend of yours, isn’t it?” she said. “That brother of his – Sherlock Holmes, the mad genius, back to wreck my life even more thoroughly than he did the first time. _What has he done with James?”_

John leaped to his feet and grabbed Lesley by the upper arms before she could do something rash. She was shaking all over.

“No!” John said urgently, “Sherlock has never met James and he is not with him now. Sherlock is currently working with the police to try to find out what happened to Toby Greaves.”

As he watched, the colour drained out of Lesley’s face and her eyes swam out of focus. 

John gripped her shoulders tightly. “Breathe,” he told her in the measured tones of a trained medic. “Take slow breaths, gently. When did you last eat? Here, let’s get you into a chair – come on.”  
Her eyes started to roll and he gripped her more securely.

“Jill,” he said, nodding his head towards the teapot, “tea, please – with lots of sugar.”

Lesley collapsed heavily into the kitchen chair but did not pass out, to John’s relief. The tea seemed to help although her face stayed very pale and her hands wrapped around the mug were trembling uncontrollably. After a few moments, she sighed and rested her head against the mug.

“You said something about Toby Greaves?” she asked huskily. She cleared her throat and looked at John enquiringly. 

“Did you know him?” he asked. 

Lesley flinched as she seemed to realise for the first time the heat of the mug under her hands. She set it down on the table.

“Doctor Watson, don’t try to be subtle,” she said with dislike, a flash of her old snark returning, “You know the exact nature of my dealings with Toby Greaves.” She sat up a little straighter and pushed her hair away from her face.

“When was the last time you saw him?” John asked in a neutral tone. 

Lesley frowned. “Well, I’m not exactly a close friend of the family, if that’s what you mean,” she replied in puzzled tones. “He’s in James’ class at school – James hangs out with him some of the time. I wish he wouldn’t, but you know what boys are like.” She shrugged and gave a very small smile. 

John nodded encouragingly but his insides contracted as he realised that Lesley had clearly been too bound up in her search for James to take in news of the evening’s events.

“I don’t know what else to tell you,” Lesley spread her hands. “Toby’s a habitual truant, drinks anything he can get hold of, smokes when they’ll sell them to him and hangs around with kids older, wiser and more vicious than he is. He’s desperate for some recognition, some kind of status. His mother’s lost herself in something; drink or drugs – I really don’t know, but she’s not exactly a functional parent. Father did a runner before Toby was born, according to the local gossip, and the family has been running wild for several years.”

“What about James’ contact with Toby?” John pressed her. Lesley seemed to shrink into herself.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I guess they just hang out together. I’ve always thought that James stayed on good terms with Toby for the protection it gave him against the others, but I couldn’t tell you if that’s all it is or whether it’s merely the tip of the iceberg.” Lesley leaned her head against her arms. 

Jill reached out a hand to pat her shoulder. “Leave her alone now,” she said to John, her mouth thinning. “Can’t you see she’s had enough?”

John sighed sadly. “Jill, Lesley – there’s something you need to know before you hear it on the bush telegraph.”

A ringing on the doorbell followed by a hammering on the door itself interrupted him. John frowned and paused for an instant then shot out of his chair; if Lestrade had sent his minions on a door-to-door, he wanted to make certain they didn’t get the wrong idea about the situation.

He needn’t have worried; it was Sherlock.

With his usual grace and tact, Sherlock walked straight through the front door without even pausing to allow John to get out of his way. John frowned and stared.

“Sherlock, how did you…” He began. 

Sherlock shook his head. “Childsplay,” he scoffed, “It was obvious what your next step would be, John, unprofessional as your methods were.” John looked away, his face warming. Sherlock pushed past him through the small hallway, striding away towards the kitchen.

“Hey, hey!” John grabbed at Sherlock’s coat to restrain him. “Just hold on a moment will you?”

The heavy wool slipped through John’s fingers as Sherlock swept into the kitchen, oblivious, and stood on the threshold without moving. Treating it like a crime scene, John thought as he brought up the rear. Sherlock’s intense gaze swung around the room like a searchlight, glancing rapidly over furniture and occupants with equal indifference. He took in Jill’s presence, dismissed her as irrelevant then with a sound of irritation, spun on his heel making as if to leave. If he recognised either of the women, he gave no sign.

Lesley’s fingers tightened on her tea mug until her knuckles whitened. “Where is he?” Her voice was ragged and panicked; her chair scraped against the linoleum as she rose to her feet. Sherlock froze and his head jerked up. Slowly, he turned back.

“Where is James?” she whispered. Sherlock cocked his head quizzically and regarded her.

“Strangely,” he replied, “that was my first question for you – once I had ascertained that he wasn’t hiding in his bedroom. I understand that is what children his age are inclined to do, boys and girls alike.”

Lesley shook her head. “He’s not at home,” she replied, “and I have no idea where he might be.” 

Lesley walked towards Sherlock, seemingly unaware that she was moving. “I’ll ask you again: where is he?” she said too calmly. John carefully positioned himself to interpose if she looked like she was about to slug Sherlock again.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes and raised his chin. “I’m curious as to why you think I might have more knowledge than you,” he replied in a neutral tone. “After all, you are his mother; you have had his care from the day he was born, whereas I have never met him.”

Lesley shivered, not from cold. “He has an uncle,” she said quietly, “An uncle who has a certain – interest in him. A very keen interest.” She swallowed and lowered her eyes.

“Mycroft?” Sherlock’s voice betrayed some surprise, “Has my brother been poking his nose in your affairs as well as mine recently?”

Lesley nodded mutely; Jill put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “He’s been trying to make her put James into a boarding school,” Jill told him mutinously. “An all-boys’ boarding school – I ask you, what self-respecting lad wants to spend his formative years somewhere like that?”

“All Holmses and their scions, if they are male,” Sherlock replied almost absently. He swept back into the hallway, brushing past Lesley as he did so. John saw her flinch at the contact before schooling her features back into their veneer of calm; he frowned, concerned, and was about to speak when Sherlock’s stentorian bellow summoned him to James’ bedroom.

The place was tiny, barely big enough to house a narrow, single bed and a beaten up table which served as a desk. Sherlock had already started to boot up the ancient desktop computer and was poking around the drawers and shelves at lightning speed.

“Sherlock,” John said uneasily, glancing over his shoulder to see Lesley and Jill both in the hallway, “Sherlock! You should ask permission before taking a person’s room apart.”

“Impossible,” replied Sherlock, calmly running his fingertips along the undersides of the drawers, “seeing as he is not here. If he were here, I would not need to search his room.”

“Well, at least ask his mother!” John hissed. He turned away and gave a helpless shrug to the two women. “I’m afraid that’s all you’re going to get out of him,” he told them sheepishly. 

Jill stared at John with wide eyes. She nodded her head towards Sherlock’s feet and legs now protruding from under James’ bed. “He’s – James’ father?” she said in an exaggerated whisper to Lesley. The other woman made no answer which left John to give the affirmative. He shrugged.

“Yeah, apparently so,” he said, glancing over his shoulder, “strange as that may seem.”

Sherlock sprang up, evidently finished with his exploration under James’ bed.

“John,” he said peremptorily, nodding at the desk, “Take a look at the contents of the cardboard box underneath.” As John made to do so, Sherlock tapped at the computer keyboard, bringing up James’ browser history.

“He cleared the cache,” Sherlock muttered, taking out his phone and connecting it to the machine with a small, all-purpose USB lead John had never seen before, “but we all know how insufficient that is to deter a really determined snoop.” He frowned and started tapping keys.

John squatted down on the carpet and pulled the box out from underneath the table. Inside, carefully wrapped in tissue paper and apparently unused, were several round-bottomed flasks with a variety of adapters, glass pipework, joints, etc. enough to make a small home distillation unit. In addition, there were thermometers, stands, clamps, even an electric hotplate. 

John’s lips thinned; he began to push the box back but a hand on his arm arrested the action.

“What is all this stuff?” Lesley asked. Her face was white and strained but she was doing her best to keep her cool.

John sighed. “There’s no easy way to say this, Lesley,” he began, but Sherlock interrupted.

“He’s trying to synthesise MDMA,” he stated flatly. “I thought it was methamphetamine at first, but the safrole convinced me otherwise.”

“Ecstasy?” breathed Lesley, her eyes wide with horror.

John frowned heavily at Sherlock. “You could have softened the blow a bit!” he protested.

“Really? How?” Sherlock returned offhandedly. He pointed at the computer screen. “Look at this! He’s managed to locate and access reliable information about home-synthesis of a variety of drugs.”

“God! Where from?” John craned his neck over Sherlock’s shoulder. 

Sherlock’s mouth curved upwards at the sight of the screen contents, grudgingly admiring. “During the late ‘90s, a website called The Hive came into being,” he told them. “It was an information-sharing forum between very disparate groups of people, all interested for various reasons in the properties of mind-altering drugs. Of course, amongst the stupid, the curious and the hobbyists were real-life criminal chemists and their clients. The site grew in popularity but remained largely underground until, unfortunately for the website owner, an episode of a hugely popular cult TV series dealing with paranormal issues featured him at his work premises, together with his computers and his laboratories. The programme also named him. He was summarily arrested and is currently serving a prison sentence. The website was gradually taken down, its more dangerous information filtered out and suppressed.”

Sherlock swung round to face them. “James has found much of the missing information, some of it online, some of it through the people who originated it – he used some very clever deductions to uncover their identities. He was ready to begin his experiments; he was just waiting for the raw materials to arrive.”

“And he had them posted to Toby Greaves’ address,” John continued, “because he knew Lesley would be suspicious. Where was he intending to carry out the experiments, do you think?”

Sherlock leaned back in James’ chair and smirked. “At the same location, of course,” he replied, “where by all logic he must be as we speak.” He pulled a crumpled piece of brown paper from his pocket and flourished it.

“Oi, that’s evidence!” John protested. Sherlock feigned deafness; he tapped the label.

“This must be the address of the late Toby Greaves,” he announced, “and my guess is that’s where we’ll find James.” 

A gasp revealed Lesley’s horror-stricken face. “The late Toby Greaves?” she whispered.

Jill turned on John with an expression of dislike. “You didn’t think to tell me he was dead before you started asking questions?” she said furiously.

“But – how?” Lesley demanded, “My god, he was thirteen – thirteen! Same age as James. How did he die?”

“Lesley,” John began in his soothing doctor’s voice. He put a careful hand on her arm; she shrugged it off impatiently.

“Don’t patronise me,” she told him. “Now, how did he die?”

“He was stabbed inexpertly with a two-inch blade by person or persons unknown and bled out in the so-called children’s play area beneath the three tower blocks on this estate.” It was Sherlock who made the reply without even looking up from James’ computer screen.

“It would have been quick – I don’t believe he would have suffered unduly, if you care about that sort of thing,” he continued. “As to what he was doing there, well seeing as he was carrying a parcel of chemicals the names of which he would not have been able to read let alone use, we can only assume he was on his way to deliver them to James.”

Sherlock sat back, apparently satisfied with his findings and looked up at the three people frozen around him. “His death could possibly have been a mugging gone wrong,” he continued, “but I’m really not certain about that. Whoever killed Toby Greaves may have meant it as an example or a warning, maybe to the gang he ran around with, perhaps to an individual who was holding out on them for whatever reason. There may have been infighting within the gang – I understand that one or two of them have form for minor but antisocial crimes – and Toby Greaves could just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Sherlock stood up and the room was suddenly much smaller, claustrophobic. “Whatever the reason or motivation, whoever is responsible for this is still out there,” he announced, “and consequently, we need to find James now, before anyone else does.” 

Sherlock strode from the room and flung open the front door. “John!” he bellowed.

“Wait!” Lesley’s voice was like a whiplash; Sherlock, amazingly, stopped in his tracks but did not turn round. She grabbed a worn leather jacket from the peg near the door and snatched up her keys from the hall table.

“Lesley, you can’t…” John began. 

Lesley said nothing, just pushed him aside as he tried to block her exit and was out of the door before he could react, Sherlock on her heels.

John blinked and exchanged a glance with Jill who nodded at him. “Look after her,” she said. John gave a lopsided smile and took off at a run after them.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have received a notification about an update to this fic and have come here rather confused, please accept my apologies. I appear to have left out a chapter and, because the plot sort-of made sense without it, no one (including me) noticed until now. However, chapter 8 is not the new chapter - chapter 7 is new. Maybe now I'll manage to get myself sorted...

I couldn’t believe what I was doing.

I was running in the dark into territory that morphed into something alien and very dangerous by night, with a madman and an idiot at my side, neither of whom had any real claim on me or any connection with my life.

The only thing I knew was, despite my antipathy towards him, the only hope I had of getting my son back alive and unharmed lay with Sherlock Holmes.

We pounded across the cracked paving stones and plunged into the gloom between two of the tower blocks. I forced my feet to obey and outstripped Sherlock Holmes’ long legs to take the lead; the lighting was dim where both the ungodly and the just plain stupid had applied spray paint liberally over the street lamps. I knew from experience which walkway was the safest to use at night and which route to take to Toby Greaves’ home. All that could be heard was the slapping of our feet against the concrete surface and the dry rasping of our breath. 

We rounded a corner and I led the way down an incline into the parking basement of a small block, instinctively hugging the walls and keeping away from the light. The lifts were, as always, out of order and the stairs stank of piss, fags and stale alcohol. It crossed my mind that there were worse places to live than Dublin Close, and this was one of them.

The way it happened was almost anticlimactic. Panting like a long-distance runner, I stopped at the correct front door and nodded wordlessly, bending over to recover. Breathing deeply, Sherlock Holmes examined the door, poking a gloved finger at the scarred wood. He pushed gently and the door gave way, having only been held on the latch. We looked at each other for a beat or two and then Sherlock Holmes pushed the door wide enough to slide around the jamb. He led the way into the hall; I followed silently with John Watson bringing up the rear. 

They had cornered James in the squalid living room where he had clearly been hiding, my James. He was filthy dirty and shivering with cold, hair matted with dried blood from a scalp wound, but he was awake and although he was scared, he was clearly very angry too.

“I keep telling you,” he said, his treble voice shot through with desperation, “you’ve got it wrong. Toby was only taking delivery of some chemicals for me so no one at home would get suspicious and start asking questions. There wasn’t anything else in that parcel – no meth, no downers, no nothing.”

“You expect us to believe you?” The voice was still young but lower pitched, like someone in their twenties. It sounded angry and rough. “Your little friend told us a lot about you. Said you had a lab – a place where you could make things. All sorts of things, he said. You’re tellin’ us he was lying?”

“Sounds like it, Vince, dunnit?” Another voice; this one had some kind of speech impediment which made the owner sound as though he was speaking through a mouthful of something. 

“Don’t make ‘im angry, kid,” the muffled voice continued. “’Ee’s ‘orrible when ‘ee gets angry, believe me.”

“Just give us the stuff and we’ll leave you alone,” the first voice continued. I heard James sigh in exasperation.

If ever there was a time for you to keep your mouth shut, James, this is it. I thought silently at him. Even as I did so, I could see it just wasn’t going to happen.

“I’m clearly going to have to say it yet again, aren’t I?” James retorted, his tone very clipped and short with anger.

“I think you’ve probably said quite enough for one day, don’t you?” 

Sherlock Holmes stepped into the living room slowly and deliberately with his hands held loosely at thigh level. I made as if to follow him but John Watson held up a gloved hand to stop me with a finger of the other hand held to his lips. I shifted quietly and carefully until I had a vantage on the whole room, then I waited while the scene played out in front of me.

James stared at the new player in this drama. “Who the fuck are you?” he demanded. 

A faint smile chased its way across Sherlock Holmes’ face. “I’m your guardian angel,” he replied crisply, “and if you have any sense at all you’ll shut up and let me deal with this.”

James looked as if he might argue but he was forestalled.

“Oi!” The muffled voice was shot with indignation. “I dunno ‘oo you think you are but you can piss off outta here unless you want more trouble than you can ‘andle.”

With my improved view of the tableau, I could see the speaker was Caucasian, in his late teens/early twenties, short and stocky with massive shoulders and a bull neck. His chest was so broad that his arms did not easily lie against his sides but rather stuck out at an angle, making him seem even wider. 

Sherlock Holmes laughed humourlessly. “Are you threatening me?” he asked, disbelief colouring his tone.

“You better believe it,” the other one chimed in. He was the same age, slighter in build and evidently of mixed race, wearing a woollen hat pulled down hard over his ears. His speech was much clearer than his friend’s but his eyes had a wildness about them that made my skin crawl.

Sherlock Holmes walked deliberately into the slighter man’s personal space. “Now, I’ll tell you how this is going to work,” he began conversationally. “I am going to count to five. You and your friend here will use that time to disappear – I don’t care where – and in return I will not give the police your full names, addresses, telephone numbers and Facebook pages, is that perfectly clear?”

The two thugs exchanged incredulous looks and burst into laughter, the stockier one of the two making unnervingly high-pitched snorts.

“Listen to ‘im!” the slighter one said. I saw John frown out of the corner of my eye. “Think we’re gonna believe a load of old cobblers like that? Know my Facebook page? Bollocks! There’s some kind of protection thing on Facebook, ain’t there?”

“So you do have a Facebook page?” Sherlock Holmes replied pleasantly, “Thank you for that piece of information. It should make tracking you down so much easier – should I need to, of course.”

I put my mouth close to John’s ear; he leaned towards me. “He’d never find either of their Facebooks in a month of Sundays,” I whispered, “Surely they won’t fall for that one?”

John merely smiled in reply and nodded back towards the unfolding drama.

“They’re right, you know,” piped up James from the sofa. I closed my eyes. James! I thought at him helplessly. “Facebook’s heavily protected; there’s no way you can find them blind.”

Sherlock Holmes swivelled to regard my son; his face was expressionless. “You,” he rumbled, “would do well to pretend that you are invisible. Better still, not actually here at all.”

James glared at Sherlock Holmes and stiffened his spine. “I know exactly who you are,” he said venomously, “and I don’t have to do anything you tell me to!”

Sherlock Holmes regarded the small, impotently furious person currently challenging him thoughtfully for a few seconds. “And if I were in your situation,” he said finally, “I would reflect on the fact that I am in very deep trouble and not be too choosy about exactly where my assistance comes from.”

Sherlock Holmes swung back to the two thugs, effectively dismissing James. “My offer still stands,” he intoned, “take it or leave it.”

The stockier thug suddenly produced a knife which he brandished in front of Sherlock Holmes with a grin. Next to me I felt John tense sharply. 

Sherlock Holmes eyed the weapon speculatively and shook his head. “Wrong answer,” he told them. Never taking his eyes off the knife, he slid his hand slowly into his coat pocket and brought out a phone.

“For the benefit of those of us present who are unable to read,” he said, thumbing the keypad rapidly and reading aloud, “Suspects apprehended at victim’s address. Assistance requested although not strictly necessary.” He turned the screen towards the two thugs.

“This was sent ten minutes ago, before I set foot in this room,” Sherlock Holmes continued in a bored voice. “Detective Inspector Lestrade’s reply came in less than a minute. Now, how long do you think it will take them to get here, eh? Look, see for yourself.” He offered the phone to the knife wielder.

For one brief instant, the man’s attention shifted and Sherlock Holmes struck, catching him viciously in the kneecap with the toe of his bespoke leather oxford. I gasped, my fist in my mouth, as the thug howled loudly hugging the injured area with his left arm. Sherlock Holmes pivoted quickly, changing his balance and caught the man in the side with another swift kick, this time to the kidneys. The thug grunted in pain but seemed suddenly to remember that his assailant was unarmed. He brought his right hand, still gripping the knife, round in a slashing blow aimed at Sherlock Holmes’s face, forcing him to dodge quickly. The thug grinned nastily and advanced, unsteadily but with determination. His injured knee gave way and he stumbled, slashing wildly with the knife as he did so.

Sherlock Holmes gave a small yelp of alarm and suddenly, the flat report of a handgun rang around the small flat followed by an anguished cry of pain. The knife clattered as it dropped on the bare floorboards. 

“Jesus!” the stocky thug whimpered, cradling his right hand against his body. “I’ve been shot! There’s a hole right through my hand!”

“Hold it!” John barked. My head whipped round to see John coolly lining up the barrel of a handgun on the other thug; he had the steadiest left hand I had ever seen. 

I dashed out of the hallway into the room. “James!” I yelled, pushing past Sherlock Holmes and sinking down onto the tatty sofa to grab hold of my son, to reassure myself that he was alive. I think I shouted at him, I think I also buried my hands in his hair and pushed his head into my shoulder; I know I was crying.

Right on cue, distant sirens heralded the belated but welcome arrival of the police. John kept his gun gently circling between the two captives, but it became unnecessary when Sherlock Holmes produced a reel of duct tape from the depths of his voluminous coat and deftly secured the more active of the two men; he left the other one moaning on the floor. 

I stroked James’ hair and looked through it for the source of the dried blood. James was shivering but he still tried to push my hand away. “Stop fussing, mum,” he protested. “They didn’t hurt me.”

Overhearing, John gave a huff of laughter. “Maybe not,” he told James in tones that brooked no argument, “but you’re still going to the hospital to be checked over, so get used to it.” 

Hearing a metallic click, I looked up to see John engage the safety on his handgun and thrust it swiftly under his jacket against the small of his back. 

Sherlock Holmes stood quietly, looking from the door to the sofa and frowning in concentration. He then took a few steps further into the room and approached a closed door to the rear left. He stopped and frowned at it, appearing to inhale deeply. A clatter of feet outside the flat made him turn his head and moments later a grey-haired, strongly built man pounded into the flat with an entourage of no less than three officers.

“Good job we were in the area,” the man offered, taking in the scene with a swift glance.

“Ah, Inspector Lestrade,” Sherlock Holmes greeted him in an expansive tone of voice, “how nice of you to drop in.” He pushed the bound and gagged man into the arms of a rather startled PC. “Just put the rubbish out while you’re here, will you?”

Lestrade nodded at the other thug who was curled in the foetal position, rocking gently and moaning with the pain of his shattered hand. “What’s wrong with him?” he demanded. 

Sherlock Holmes shrugged indifferently. “Do you care, Inspector?” he replied. “He and his little friend there are responsible for the murder of a defenceless thirteen year-old boy and at least ABH on another, if not aggravated assault. And that’s just today. I don’t think you’ll want to waste too much time being gentle with either of them but for the record, his knife slipped.”

Lestrade held Sherlock Holmes’ implacable gaze for a moment longer than strictly necessary then sighed. “Donovan, call an ambulance,” he said resignedly, then, “Oi! What the blazes do you think you’re doing with that? It’s evidence!”

Sherlock Holmes was on his knees jabbing at the threadbare sofa with Stocky Thug’s knife. He scowled up at Lestrade and snapped his fingers impatiently. Rolling his eyes at the policeman’s look of incomprehension, he snapped “Evidence bag!” Lestrade rummaged in his pockets and produced one, holding it open; Sherlock Holmes slipped the knife into it.

“Just tying up loose ends,” he said, surreptitiously pocketing something he had dug out of the sofa as he rose to his feet. Before Lestrade could comment, Sherlock Holmes motioned towards the closed door towards the back of the room.

“I think you might want to send in someone with a strong stomach,” he said quietly. Lestrade gave him a quizzical look. “Mrs Greaves,” Sherlock Holmes replied steadily. “I think she may have been dead several days judging by the smell. Whether the two morons you just arrested are responsible or whether she simply overdosed on something I will leave up to Anderson to discover; that’s probably just about his level of expertise.”

Suddenly, I experienced a strong desire to relocate somewhere else – anywhere else. I shifted around on the sofa to get my feet back under me. “Right, young man,” I said to James, nodding at the flashing blues lights heralding the arrival of the ambulance, “hospital-time for you.”

“Oh, for god’s sake, it’s only a scratch!” James objected testily.

“It’s just a flesh wound,” John murmured; Sherlock Holmes snorted quietly. I frowned at both of them.

“James,” I warned. He took in my serious expression and slumped in defeat, rolling his eyes.

“Alright,” he said in a resigned tone of voice and rose from the sofa. The action brought him face to face with Sherlock Holmes.

James stared up at his rescuer with a considering look on his face.

“Is this what you do, like, for a job?” he asked artlessly. 

Sherlock Holmes nodded. “It’s not always as exciting as this,” he replied, “and John doesn’t generally…”

John coughed loudly, his eyes skittering towards the Detective Inspector. Sherlock Holmes smiled faintly and didn’t finish his sentence.

“But you solve crimes, don’t you?” James persisted, “You work for the police and for people who hire you. And he blogs about it.”

Sherlock Holmes nodded consideringly. “That’s more or less correct, yes,” he replied. His eyes on James were extremely sharp, his expression almost – approving, if that were at all possible. I felt suddenly unsettled.

“James,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “it’s very late. I think we need to get you into the ambulance now.”

Sherlock Holmes nodded. “Indeed,” he told my son, “despite the fact that most medical studies have about as much logic behind them as witchcraft, I am reliably informed by my friend and colleague the good Doctor Watson here, that after an experience such as you have been through tonight, an anti-tetanus shot at the very least would be a wise precaution.”

“And don’t think you’re going to escape scot-free, Sherlock,” the good Doctor Watson himself chimed in with a grim smile. “Don’t think I didn’t notice where that knife got you.” 

John made a grab at Sherlock Holmes’ arm and pushed the sleeve of his coat up to his elbow, displaying a long, thin gash running down the outside of his forearm. He examined it critically.

“Butterfly stitches, I would think,” he said.

“You can do it back at the flat,” Sherlock Holmes said decisively, rolling down his sleeve. John shook his head smiling.

“No can do,” he said. “If James needs an anti-tetanus shot, so do you – I’m well aware that yours has lapsed even if you’re not – and I have none at home.” He grinned cheerfully. “Time for an ambulance ride, Sherlock,” he said, “we’ll take a taxi back when they’re done with you.”

Sherlock Holmes sighed and looked down at James. The two of them exchanged similar long-suffering glances then, in unison, picked themselves up wearily and trudged towards the door. John and I followed close behind.

“Do you smoke?” I heard James pipe up, turning his head towards Sherlock Holmes. 

The tall man made a non-committal gesture with one hand. “I’m trying to quit,” he replied, “but I do occasionally when John fails to find my stash; he’s an absolute bear about smoking in the flat.”

“Quite right too,” John muttered; Sherlock Holmes ignored him but James nodded seriously.

“So’s mum,” he offered. “Uh, you wouldn’t happen to have any on you, would you? I could really do with a drag after that.”

“James,” I said from behind in low, warning tones. He gave no sign that he had heard, but his ears turned red. I smiled faintly at John who quirked his eyebrows in response.

Sherlock Holmes shook his head slowly. “Unfortunately, no,” he replied, “but I know a place that stays open till 2am – I think I could persuade the ambulance driver to…”

 _”Sherlock!”_ hissed John. Sherlock Holmes’ shoulders tensed slightly then relaxed again. He shoved his hands into his pockets.

“On second thoughts,” he said, turning his head in profile to look at James and rolling his eyes in John’s direction, “I think we’re going to have to do without.”

“You bet you are!” John muttered. He turned to exchange a glance with me and looked away again immediately to hide a giggle. I sniggered quietly and he turned back with a smile that was wide and genuine.

“Holmeses!” he exclaimed quietly. I shook my head in amused resignation.

“Hopeless,” I told him. As if he didn’t already know

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a surprising number of requests for a sequel to Deleted, it took me quite some time to get a handle on how to continue something I had originally seen as a one-off. Ladies and gentlemen, many thanks for the interest - I'm very touched and I hope this does the trick.


End file.
